Freeze-frame a short sequence of a documentary The act of the college of Mariana Otero, published by Blaq out. The extract analyzed is between 6.30 and 7. 03 on the video (the law of The collège_extrait)
A French course at the collège Garcia Lorca, in the Seine-Saint-Denis. About grammar and conjugation. The professor corrects a fiscal year, a student at the bottom of the class manifests his desire to do well by raising their hand and offers up his answers. All does not seem fair, and are a long time coming. We feel all the difficulty of the student to respond quickly. He stops, frowns, wants to succeed, and then spontaneously he let loose a “damn” evocative.
The curse of the pupil who, despite his efforts patents fails to give the correct answer translated, we, it seems, the symbolic violence to which the school submits at this moment. Experience instant a learning difficulty, without doubt repeated. This image is strong because it shows us in one moment the difficulty of the school learning for students from poor backgrounds. Contrary to the common discourse that would be that these students are defined only by their unwillingness to school, this picture shows us a more complex reality, made up of the will to succeed and to participate in the school game, and the other the reminder of such a double bind, socialization and the cultural distance with the language, particularly in its written form.
This excerpt illustrates what Pierre Périer, in his book published recently, The school negotiated. Parents, students, teachers in difficult contexts (Presses Universitaires de Rennes,2011) calls to the relegation. The hopes placed in the school by the students in difficulty are violently challenged by the daily experience and repeated them inability to achieve.
“The direction given to the school crumbled as the accumulation of events school full of” bad ” notes, judgements and sanctions that devalue and debase sometimes. “(p. 111)
Frederique and Benoit